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Preah Khan
Born into the strife-torn wastelands of the Flint River, Preah Khan sought to elevate himself above his station. To that end, he would build an army, not to conquer his homeland but instead to forge an empire out of the Detroit Wasteland. He would become the first of the so-called Warlords of Detroit, triggering decades of strife and violence that would shape the region for decades to come. However, he would ultimately be bought down by one of his own followers, who deposed him and sent him into exile. History Rise to Power The man who would become Preah Khan was born William Barrow in a settlement inside the ruins of Flint in 2145. He came into an environment of constant violence, where different groups clashed with one another for control of meagre resources, surrounded by toxic water, contaminated soil and mutated creatures. From an early age, he embraced the kill or be killed lifestyle of the region, as much from the need to survive as any desire to fight. By the age of eighteen, he was the leader of a raider gang that controlled a portion of Flint, but inside he desired for more. William knew that his tiny empire was at best going to be transitory. Sooner or later, he would be killed, and another strongman would come along and take what he had. To his eyes, the entire Flint River region was a wasteland, one that was beyond redemption, caught in an endless cycle of violence. Its people never sought to build or create or improve themselves, but rather to simply kill their opponents and take what they possessed. The names might change, but the Flint River region would remain locked in a degenerative cycle forever. But for all that, he could see the road to a better future, one that lay not in the Flint River region, but rather beyond it. Stories had reached him of settlements growing up in he ruins of Detroit, ones that had achieved permanence and stability rather than being constantly torn asunder by violence. Using what assets her could bring to bear, Barrow did his utmost to discover the truth of these stories, going through travellers, traders, scavengers and the like to harvest information. What he found astounded him; there were three settlements, Grand Central, Chryslus Castle and Park Lane, growing out of the ruins of the fallen city. All three had managed to survive for several decades now, and had grown rather than be subsumed back into the wastes. In those three, William Barrow saw his future. He would leave this wasteland of perpetual violence where nothing ever changed, and instead travel to Detroit. And then, once there, he would conquer those settlements and make them his own. However, in order to do that, he would first need an army. Barrow knew that he would not be able to raise one from the local region; the gangs, scavengers and other powers were simply to fractious to work together, and any attempt to unify them would merely provoke more infighting. Rather, he devised an ambitious plan, one that would take years to unfold. Gathering up those followers he could, Barrow headed away from the Flint River and into the Michigan wilderness. Along the way, Barrow forged himself a new identity. Abandoning his birth name, Barrow retitled himself as Preah Khan, taking his inspiration from a fragmentary history book he found along the way (It is assumed that he didn’t know of the Great Khans, and that the similarity of name is just a coincidence based on the same historical sources). His followers were likewise reformed as an army, its members given rank and structure. This was the beginning of Preah Khan’s Long March. For the next five years, Preah Khan would roam the Michigan wilderness, conquering everything that came into his path (Preah Khan’s army passed by the entrance to Vault 54 without ever being aware of its existence). He targeted any force that might offer him some resource, be they settlements, raider gangs or whatever else. However, those that he conquered were not put to the torch; rather, they were absorbed into his army. Raiders were forced to surrender, their members inducted into his ranks. Settlements were captured as intact as possible so that they could provide him with supplies. Those that had merit, be they useful skills or talents, were promoted and raised to positions of authority within the new order. Finally, in early 2174, Preah Khan felt that his army was ready. He moved his forces towards the Detroit Wasteland, eyeing it for conquest. First Victories As much as he wanted to see the Detroit Wasteland bought under his control, Preah Khan was not overeager by any means. He knew that his army would need a base of operations that they could work from, one that would not only house his men, but serve as a destination for the supplies he was routing in from his other conquests. Surveying the area, his scouts reported one viable location for such a base, being the ruined Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The scouting parties he sent to the airport reported that many of the structures in and around it were relatively intact, but that they were also infested with feral ghouls. One of the scouts in particular caught his eye both for the risks they had taken in gathering their intel and the thoroughness of their report. Seeing the promise they held, Preah Khan took this man, known as Killmesiter, into his inner circle of lieutenants that would be vital to his future plans. Using Killmeister’s information, Preah Khan’s army descended on the airport en masse. They exterminated the feral Ghouls down to the last, purging it of their presence. With the airport secured, his forces moved in and made it their own. Its perimeter and buildings were fortified, while the interiors were converted into barracks and storehouses. Everything was done with an eye to permanence; while Preah Khan felt that the airport would only serve as his headquarters until he had conquered one of the Detroit Wasteland settlements, he also knew that would not happen instantly, and, as such, they should be prepared for a long stay. Ultimately, that would be far longer than expected. Based on the intelligence he had, Preah Khan decided that his first major target would be Chryslus Castle. The northern most of the three major settlements, it was the closest to the airport and the furthest from the other two. He reasoned that it would be relatively easy to isolate and surround Chryslus Castle, and then starve it out and force its leaders into a surrender. Should that tactic fil, he reasoned that he would have the numbers to take it by force if needs be. And once Chryslus was in his hands, the others would follow. After careful preparation, Preah Khan’s forces swept in from the northwest, entering the Detroit Wasteland like a devouring swarm. Their first target was North Point Village, a small settlement that was right in their path. His armies quickly overwhelmed their meagre defences and forced a surrender, absorbing the settlement and its inhabitants into their ranks. North Point was then converted into a staging ground, providing a vital link with the airport through which supplies and men would flow to the frontlines. From there they continued to advance, encountering raider gangs within the ruins of the city proper. Preah Khan made it abundantly clear that those who chose to surrender to his forces would be allowed to live and serve in his new army. Those that did were absorbed and treated fairly as promised. Those that chose to resist were exterminated save for a few who would be deliberately spared in order to spread the word of what was coming. As he advanced, Preah Khan found that more and more raiders were willing to surrender rather than be slaughtered. Rivalry As he approached Chryslus Castle, word reached Preah Khan of another large force in the city. Lead by an individual calling themselves the Butcher, this force was said to be a gathering army that had been building in the city’s ruined east. In an uncharacteristic mistake, Preah Khan dismissed these reports, believing that the Butcher’s forces were neither large nor organised enough to pose a threat to his own. Instead, he focused on his objective, a decision that would prove to be incredibly costly. With his forces on the verge of Chryslus Castle, what Preah Khan instead found was that the Butcher had beaten him to the punch. Her armies were allready taking up positions to encircle and attack the settlement themselves, showing a strength and level of coordination that he had not expected. Caught on the back foot, Preah Khan was forced to completely rewrite his plans in order to deal with this new threat. He could not afford to have her take Chryslus Castle first, lest she dig in and prove to be impossible to dislodge. The other alternative was even worse, that she may simply put the settlement to the torch. Preah Khan instead chose to take the fight to the Butcher, but instead found that her forces were far larger than he had anticipated. Several battles yielded nothing but defeats, forcing him to change Tactics. Using information provided by Killmeister, he began to get a much better picture of their positions, and in turn an better idea of what to do about them. He chose to split his army, aiming to encircle her armies as they had encircled Chryslus Castle. His best case scenario was that she would be crushed between him and the Castle’s defenders, but even then he was confident that he possessed the numbers and skill to crush her forces on his own. He quickly divided his advance into two main groups; a northern march to be lead by his second, Bob Murderface, and a southern to be directed by himself. For all his planning, what unfolded next was nothing short of a complete disaster, one that would shape the Warlords and their conflicts for years to come. Preah Khan’s own advance would bog down in the ruins, beset upon by an enemy that proved to be far more wily and elusive than expected. (Although he was unaware of it at the time, this counterattack was lead by future Warlord, Black Alice). His offensive ground to a halt as his men were beset from all sides by the Butcher’s, costing them men and material and most critically, time. Preah Khan himself would be wounded during this failed advance, another factor which was to have a profound effect on events to come. The northern advance would fare even worse, however. The main body of the Butcher’s forces slammed into Bob Murderface’s advance, shattering it. Not only were his troops slaughtered, but Bob Murderface was among the dead. The remnants of the northern force broke and fled in blind panic, further depleting their numbers as many simply deserted or, even worse, tried to surrender themselves to the Butcher. No longer able to maintain his advance, Preah Khan was forced to concede the area to the Butcher. He pulled back his forces while he himself fell back to North Point Village for medical assistance. Not only did he now need to completely redraw his plans, but Preah Khan also needed a new second to replace Bob Murderface. Recognising him for his achievements so far, Preah Khan chose to elevate Killmeister to the position. Together, the pair of them would plan for a future that was very different to what he had previously envisaged. Hearts of Iron For all the planning that Preah Khan had put into defeating the Butcher, her actual death at the hands of a Chryslus Castle sniper was both sudden and unexpected. Furthermore, her failed invasion of the settlement told Preah Khan a lot more about what he could expect in future. It became abundantly clear that he had underestimated both the level of preparation Chryslus Castle had made for such an occurrence, as well as their level of resolve. The Butcher’s death had not solved his problems by any means, however. Her army had split between two of her lieutenants, Black Alice and Hacksaw, but had not fragmented as he had hoped. Furthermore, while it was clear that the two were not allied by any means, it did appear that the pair of them were also avoiding conflict with each other for the moment while remaining control of a large swathe of territory around Chryslus Castle. Feeling that the settlement was no longer a viable target, Preah Khan instead chose to focus on Park Lane. While not as large or immediately powerful as Chryslus Castle, Park Lane was also less heavily fortified and, perhaps more importantly, not in the sights of another Warlord. However, it also was further from North Point and the airport, which would force another long advance through the Detroit Wasteland. While far from the relatively swift conquest that he had hoped for, Preah Khan saw the wisdom of this approach and launched a new offensive. Taking a slower approach, he drove towards Park Lane, carefully picking his way through the ruins and examining those that he encountered. At first, the raiders he came across were open to surrender and absorption into his forces, having apparently heard about what was happening on the northern side of the city. The confidence that had been waning since the conflict with the Butcher was now beginning to increase again, with Preah Khan now anticipating the fall of the settlement. Instead, his forces again came under attack by what at first seemed to be isolated and fragmented raider gangs. While not doing significant damage, these strikes were enough to slow and distract Preah Khan, forcing him to divert forces in order to deal with them. What he instead found was that they were all coming from a single source; the supposed small raider gangs were in fact under the control of Black Alice, who had also been discretely extending her reach. She had somehow managed to elude Preah Khan’s eye while building up her own territories and forces, presumably as a prelude to her own attack on Park Lane. These conflicts quickly escalated as the two warlords began to again vie for position and an opening to attack Park Lane. While Preah Khan had the initial advantage of numbers, it quickly became apparent that Black Alice’s forces were more mobile and flexible, seizing the initiative and forcing the fight to be on their terms. Soon Preah Khan’s army were pinned in place, unable to advance. However, at the same time, it seemed that Black Alice was not able to advance either, lest she lose her advantage. The conflict between the pair of them slowed to a grinding stalemate as the pair engaged in protracted skirmishes without actually advancing. The conflict dragged on as Preah Khan was forced to push more men into the meat-grinder of the conflict while also failing to make any headway. As if to make matters worse, reports reached Preah Khan of a mysterious red Power Armour among Black Alice’s forces. Realising that this was a threat his forces could not take on directly, Preah Khan began to devise ways to counter this new development. These preparations would eventually see use, but not in a way that he had expected. As if to make matters worse, the winter of 2181-2182 proved to be exceptionally harsh, drawing the conflict to a standstill. Both sides spent their time hunkered down and sheltered, their forces rarely venturing out while trying to survive on whatever resources they could scavenge. As much as it was frustrating to Preah Khan and his lieutenants, the situation proved to be just as problematic for Black Alice who found her forces similarly hampered. In the midst of this grinding stalemate, Preah Khan received some good news. Reports reached him that the winter had been especially hard on Hacksaw’s forces, who had suffered considerable losses to starvation and desertion. Seeing an opportunity, he mobilised the last of his reserves to advance on Chryslus Castle, reinforced by whatever forces he could spare from the southern front. His intelligence told him that for whatever reason, Black Alice wasn’t acting on this development, instead choosing to stay where she was for whatever reason. Hacksaw’s forces proved to be as weak as expected, crumbling under the assault and quickly falling back from Chryslus Castle. Hacksaw managed to survive the onslaught, even if his forces were further depleted, leaving his position precarious. In short order, Preah Khan had made massive advances, gaining more ground in a short burst than he had in months. Once again, Chryslus Castle was in his sights. The truth of Hacksaw’s rapid collapse would become apparent soon enough, however. As Preah Khan was marshalling his forces for his own attack on Chryslus Castle, they came under attack by another force. This army had apparently been pressing Hacksaw’s for some time, eroding their territory and either killing or absorbing his forces. Wary of another surprise as had happened with the Butcher, Preah Khan sent scouts to discover more about this new enemy. What they found was deeply concerning to him. These attacks were being lead by a figure known as Bun-Bun the Destroyer, an enigmatic figure clad in a Power Armour suit, who drove his men through sheer terror. Bun-Bun’s forces moved fast, essentially absorbing all of Hacksaw’s before killing the warlord. With Hacksaw out of the way, Bun-Bun was moving on both Chryslus Castle and Preah Khan’s own territories. Wanting to put an end to this enemy as swiftly as possible so he could get back to his war, Preah Khan tasked Killmesiter with the elimination of Bun-Bun. He reasoned that without the enigmatic and terrifying warlord, this new rival army would fall apart. He gave Killmesiter a broad leeway to act and access to whatever resources he needed to accomplish this goal, but also made it clear that failure would not be tolerated. Unfortunately, Killmesiter’s Operation KILL THE RABBIT was a failure. Killmesiter had placed his faith in the idea that an army of poorly-trained, chem-addled conscripts would prove to be an effective fighting force, and that they could eliminate Bun-Bun through the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons. Instead, the operation cost Preah Khan men, time and a stash of equipment that he had been building up to use against one of the Settlements. To make matters worse, for some time Preah Khan had considered Killmesiter to be his heir, but now the man had failed him. With some reluctance, he promoted another one of his lieutenants, Jimmy Bones, to be an equal second with Killmesiter. This decision would prove to be a costly mistake. The only upside to KILL THE RABBIT was that it pushed Bun-Bun further south, which in turn bought him into conflict with Black Alice. This move relived the pressure on Preah Khan’s forces, but still left him with considerable losses in terms of men and material that he needed to make up. His timetable of conquest was pushed back again, leaving him no better off than he had been when his forces first entered the city. The Grind The conflict between Black Alice and Bun-Bun reached its peak when his rival killed the rabbity warlord in single combat. Preah Khan had reasoned that with the death of their terrifying figurehead, Bun-Bun’s army would collapse in on itself and clear the way for him. At the worst, he assumed that whatever was left would be crushed between him and Black Alice, resulting in a land-grab to clean up what was left of them while trying to deny the other access to men and territory. What actually happened was that two of Bun-Bun’s lieutenants emerged, each carving up a chunk of the fallen warlord’s empire and consolidating their hold. As had happened with the death of the Butcher, the fall of one warlord had merely spawned two more. And while neither had the sheer ferocity and mania of Bun-Bun, they still possessed men and manpower enough to hold their territory against their would-be conquerors. Furthermore, any advance that Preah Khan made on them would also risk exposing his forces to Black Alice. Seeing that his path to conquest was no clearer, Preah Khan adopted a new strategy that amounted to a somewhat lateral move on his part. Rather than advancing on the territories of his rivals, he sought to expand outwards, carving up more of the city wastes that lay outside the Warlords’ control. He pushed his forces both south and westwards, occupying swathes of the wasteland while at the same time conquering and assimilating small communities, raiders and other groups. Soon he had built up a massive zone of control that dwarfed those of his rivals, but the results were still only marginal. He didn’t control any major settlements, and what he did have could contribute little beyond manpower to his goals. What it did give Preah Khan was the advantage of room to manoeuvre. Having failed in two bids to take Chryslus Castle and finding Park Lane to be too close to Black Alice’s forces, he instead pushed south through the more run down and less populated western portions of the ruins. His goal was to push towards Grand Central, the largest and wealthiest of the Detroit Wasteland settlements with an eye towards conquering it. Ironically, the main reason he had passed it up was due to its location relative to the others; now that remoteness made it far more enticing to him. Downfall With his rivals now in disarray, Preah Khan began a new push towards Park Lane with an eye towards conquest. As his troops closed in around the settlement, Preah Khan felt more and more energised than he had in years, regaining the same eager hunger for conquest that he had felt when he first laid eyes on the Detroit wasteland. However, he also became more and more focused on that one objective, while ignoring what was actually going on around him. This lack of vision would cost him everything. For years, Jimmy Bones had been building his own support within Preah Khan’s army. Feeling that he had been going nowhere and that Preah Khan’s leadership had become plodding, reactive and wasteful, caught in a long, grinding war that had lost sight of its objectives. As such, he sought to depose Preah Khan and take control of his army for himself. Jimmy was not alone in these feelings, and had gained considerable support from within Preah Khan’s army. He was especially popular among Ghouls within the army, who felt that they would gain more under his leadership. Preah Khan remained unaware of this, spending all his time on managing his campaigns against the other warlords. He was convinced that Durham Red was on the verge of collapse, and that a single solid push by his forces would be enough to end what was his biggest threat. From there, he was making plans for the conquest of Park Lane, feeling that it would be the most exposed of the settlements. While there were still other forces in play, he had figured that they were entirely secondary to his goals. As he was preparing for his final offensive, Preah Khan was ambushed in his office by Jimmy Bones and his men. The plotters took him prisoner with intent to dispose of him, however Jimmy over-rode their decision. He figured that having Preah Khan would serve to legitimise his seizure of power and serve as a magnet for those still loyal to the former warlord’s leadership. Despite what had happened, Preah Khan himself remained stoic throughout, assuming that there would be some sort of counter-coup that restored him to power. Instead, neither of them were accurate in their predictions. Jimmy Bones found that the other lieutenants, Killmesiter chief among them, simply took control of their own portions of his army, setting themselves up as rival warlords. However, none of those new warlords threw their support behind Preah Khan himself, instead promoting themselves. The result was that Preah Khan’s army quickly fragmented into feuding groups, effectively shattering his empire. None the less, Jimmy Bones chose not to execute Preah Khan for whatever reason. Weather out of a sense of lingering loyalty or because he was fearful that his death would serve as a lightning rod for discontent, Jimmy took the decision to exile the former warlord instead. That way, whatever happened to Preah Khan, Jimmy Bones would be absolved of the blame for it. Given a weapon and a some supplies, the one time conqueror was cast out into the Detroit Wasteland. While this was a massive loss, Preah Khan was not defeated by any means. He instead put himself to work in building himself a new army, aiming to recreate the same success that had seen him rise to power. However, this time, the circumstances were very different. This time, Preah Khan had nothing to his name beyond what was on his person, and the ground proved to be far less fertile. The people of the Detroit Wasteland were burned out due to the decades of conflict that he had initiated, and few of them were eager for more violence. Furthermore, around him the heirs to his army were proving to be wasteful and divisive, fighting among themselves rather than focusing on their enemies. Preah Khan could do little but watch as all he’d built was being torn down. Abandoning his dreams of armies and conquest, he instead shed his identity and focused instead on simply trying to survive. This saw him turn back to the fighting skills that he had used to find his feet in the first place that had been neglected after his rise to power. Having once sought to conquer Park Lane, Preah Khan (now calling himself William Barrow again) now lived among its populace. He passed himself off as a mercenary, claiming to have come from outside the Detroit Wasteland and having fought against the Warlords in past. This was readily accepted by the people of Park Lane, who were used to a somewhat transitory population, especially among the mercenaries who lived there. William Barrow made several efforts to create his own mercenary group over the years, but none of them would persist. Instead he largely was working on his own, or with small ad-hoc groups that would rarely last beyond a single job. As the years went by, he became more and more isolated from those around him as he turned to drinking. Inside there was a certain degree of bitterness as he saw those that had once been his lieutenants destroy all that he had built over the years. In many ways, the crushing of Killmesiter’s army and his subsequent execution was the last straw that broke him. The age of the warlords was at and end, their armies shattered and their conquests dissolving back into fragmented raider groups once again. Barrow was less and less active as a mercenary in the years to come, as age, injuries and alcoholism dulled his senses and sapped his skills. He died in 2205 in poverty, having outlived his other rivals (save for possibly Black Alice). His body was disposed of without ceremony, and his merge possessions simply divided up. Personality Preah Khan was something of a complicated figure, one that was in many ways far deeper than the other warlords. While he was driven by the desire to conquer like so many others, his motives were more about the idea of building a lasting empire than anything else. Preah Khan believed in order and control, and that the best way to achieving such was through the strong directing the weak. He wanted to capture the settlements of the Detroit wasteland as intact as possible in order to best use their resources. In many ways, he held the people of those communities in higher regard than he did the raiders and tribals that he led; to him, they had made more with their lives through creating and building up these communities. He saw himself as a visionary and a leader, one who would make these things happen through his decisions and direction. Every move that he made was carefully calculated and planned in order to bring him victory based on the information he had available. However, he was also prone to over-focusing on his objective and ignoring or underestimating potential threats that were external to his objectives. This was how he was blindsided by the Butcher, then Bun-Bun and eventually by Jimmy Bones. As can be imagined, Preah Khan was a strong beliver in rule by force. Despite this, he felt that strength of arms was not sufficient enough reason to rule in and of itself, and would never ensure continuity. He felt that those who led needed to also needed to be the most intelligent and knowledgeable, and to understand the peoples that they ruled over. He also felt that inheritance should go to the most capable, rather than the simple default of parentage. Preah Khan despised the idea of the cult of personality; to him, a man who needed to make himself into a god in order to secure his leadership was weak. In keeping with this aesthetic principles, Preah Khan never formed any long-term relationships or had any children. He never showed any outwards signs of attraction to women or men, leading to some suggestions that he was completely asexual. This was also reflected in his beliefs; he felt that individuals should be judged on merit, and not what he saw as arbitrary divisions like the colour of their skin or their gender. Finally, Preah Khan prized knowledge. He sought to gather as much of it as he could in order to learn from it. While he prized the knowledge of the old world, especially when it came to technology, he also would gather that from the new where he felt that it would be useful. He synthesised much of his beliefs, experiences and philosophies into a trio of philosophical treatises, The Book of the Last Moon, The Book of the New Sun and The Book of the Conqueror Kings. Hand-written copies of these tomes were circulated through his armies during his time as warlord. They are currently banned in all of the major Detroit Wasteland settlements, and by 2287 they had become exceedingly rare. However, a few complete sets still exist, including one held by the Forgemaster. Another, somewhat chocolate stained set was posessed by Mrs Mothrapickles. Appearance For most of his life, Preah Khan was a tall, reasonably fit man whose features were dominated by a focused, intense glare. He had dark hair that was usually worn short, accompanied by a thick moustache and skin tanned from a life spent outdoors under often harsh conditions. In his later years after he was deposed, his physical condition and presentation degraded somewhat, leading to a somewhat dishevelled appearance. By the time of his death, the once fierce warlord was indistinguishable from the other transients who lived in Park Lane. Selected quotes On Leadership On Division On Technology On Conquest On the other Warlords On self-reflection Category:Raiders Category:Michigan Category:Deceased